Dying in the Sun
by Missingmile
Summary: Three snippets (Tom, Harry, and B'Elanna) POV of their relationships. Slash themes.


Dying in the Sun  
  
Written by Acacia Dyre  
  
Warning: Written as three snippets, short. Slash themes.  
  
Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek and its characters. I own nothing but a fat cat.  
  
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The were both blind. Tom should have been thankful for that, his best friend and girlfriend not being able to see what was really going on in their relationships. He wasn't though; it only made him sad to see that they wouldn't look past the flimsy barriers he had put around his heart.  
  
They both loved him in a way, he supposed. Just not in the way that he truly wanted. She came to him more out of loneliness and affection than attraction or passion and Harry didn't even try to change the best buddy, brotherly camaraderie they had always shared. They were on molded runners going nowhere fast, and he wanted to break free of the roles they had set up, but with no one to pull him free it seemed impossible.  
  
He touched them both, wondering if anyone ever noticed the difference in how he did that. Marveled at how close he would sit, or walk, next to his best friend when B'Elanna was held an arm length away in public. Was astonished that no one else saw the brief flicker of pain in Harry's eyes, not even the stalwart young Ensign himself, when the "happy couple" wanted to be alone.  
  
Something had to change. This was all a lie. He wanted...no. He couldn't want that. Harry probably would never expect it because, well, it would just not be anything like what he was anticipating. After chasing after most of the eligible women of the ship the last thing anyone would expect would be for Tom Paris to proposition his best friend...best male friend. Even if it was the one thing he wanted to do most of all; not just one night or one week, but for the rest of their lives. Harry would never expect that.  
  
It would not happen. The risk was too great and so he would cling to B'Elanna for a while longer and she would protect him from the loneliness of the night as he watched over her. And nothing would change.  
  
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They thought that he didn't notice...the way their eyes would sometimes linger on him when it seemed as if his attention were elsewhere. He saw it all. Sometimes he felt it all. The way that Tom's hand would linger, not on his shoulder in that brotherly fashion he excused it as, but low on the middle of the back. A yearning touch that tickled at the desire that flared around all three when they were not trying to lie so strongly.  
  
She did the same thing. When they were working together, in close quarters of a jefferies tube. Her hands, questing for some forgotten tool brushing his thigh, her dusky skin darkening momentarily. She wouldn't acknowledge the glint of desire that would sweep through her eyes and so he, the innocent one, would pretend that nothing had changed. He longed to say something, to do something. His lips ached with it.  
  
B'Elanna was so beautiful with her strength and intelligence, and she could barely see it. Tom, just the opposite, when he appeared strong he was at his weakest. Both so alone, so needy in their ways. Harry wanted to love both; he really did love them already, as a friend, with secret desire.  
  
Maybe he was naive. He never envisioned any passionate scenes of sex with either of them. He loved them simply, knowing that they were together, without him, and that they were holding on so tightly to the lie that everything was exactly as it seemed between the three of them. Just friends. And he was just alone. There was no one else on the ship he wanted. Even the excuse of Libby was gone; he loved her still, but he expected that she would have moved on by now. It was for the best that he had moved on also. It was only that there was no one to go to. He clung to them both, hoping that they wouldn't tell him to go away. Knowing, as they did, that sometimes they needed the interruption before the truth came out. Clinging desperately to the lie that spread between them keeping them apart as it tied them to one another.  
  
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Cowards, the both of them. One touching and the other holding her away with false innocence. She saw the way they brushed against each other in the corridors, huddled close at meals. That was friendship? When Tom would forget about her completely and they would act like strangers during missions...and they were dating.  
  
Not that she blamed him. Well, not about Harry anyway. She did the same thing when she thought that she would get away with it and there was no complaint yet. She did suspect that he knew exactly what was going on. The wide-eyed routine didn't fool her anymore. It just gave her the chance to push things a little further than she could if they were acknowledging the way that engineering would get so warm when those little moments happened.  
  
Tom didn't see any of it, safe on the bridge, when they worked together. It was just as well. He didn't seem to be able to deal with either of them very well, trying to hide the way he felt for both and failing miserably. They let him think that they could not see it. B'Elanna had never talked to Harry about Tom, not about this anyway, but she could see that he understood how the pilot felt. They honored that distance. It was what they had to do.  
  
Perhaps life was more enlightened and their relationship wouldn't be anything unusual for the majority of the crew. But Tom didn't say anything and so they wouldn't either. The only one she felt badly for was Harry. She and Tom had each other when the dark of night struck with horrible cruelty. Harry was alone. Trapped between two people he obviously loved and could not be with. And they clung together, sinking into that sea of lies, all drowning on that perfectly blue-skied beach. All dying in the sun.  
  
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End 


End file.
